Set-top box specialist Humax will this weekend begin adding its TV Portal IPTV interface to its HDR-Fox T2 Freeview HD DVR.
The Humax TV Portal will initial provide access to BBC iPlayer, Flickr and Wiki@TV, but Humax said it will be adding Sky Player for BSkyB customers in "a matter of weeks".
Humax TV Portal
Despite its …

Freesat + Freeview HD

.... but is it any good?

I've got a humax foxsat HDR which has had iplayer for some time, but it a pretty dire iPlayer impementation. The interface is incerdibly slow and clunky and the picture quality - even for "HD" mode is like a bad youtube video - unwatchable on a big screen. Unless this box's iPlayer is as good as a decent PC or the Sony BDP 370s it will be as much use as a tinfoil hat.

Faster

I've tested power line adaptors a speeds as fast as Cat5e on 100 Mbit NICs (high nineties). So no Cat5e isn't faster than power line adaptors, assuming the box (and your router) has a 100Mbit connector. But even so this would only matter if your internet connection was faster than 100Mbit/s *and* iPlayer actually needed more than 100Mbit/s. It isn't and it doesn't so your point is moot.

The only problem I have with power line ethernet adaptors is the RF interference some of them cause. As such I'd be more inclined to go wireless on this if the router was sitting a long way from the TV box. Most homes don't have the phone socket near the TV and routing cat5 is a major pain when it's much easier to use powerline adaptors or wireless.

- note I haven't tried installing it myself yet as I wanted to see a few reports from people who had (just in case it rendered the box dangerously unstable, as has happened to me with the old PVR 9000).

As good as FreeView for me

My broadband isn't up to the HD version, but iPlayer SD is as good as FreeView on my telly. I forget I'm watching streaming iPlayer a lot of the time.

I'm also using Powerline Ethernet to connect to the broadband router, and it's only the ancient 85Mb/s version. That's still forty times faster than my broadband, so is easily good enough for an internet connection,.

Great bit of kit

Each to their own but I think the picture quality of the iPlayer is very good (I have a 32 Samsung TV), I only get about 8meg in and run it through the power, ease of use is superb.

One thing I'd point out is that not everything is on there, we went to watch 'The Tudors' last week and it wasn't available on the Humax but was on the PS3 iPlayer, very odd, I've mailed Humax but not had a response.

Can't wait for the Sky player as we don't have cable and aren't aloud a dish so this is ideal for me.